Towards the end of my stay in Morocco, it was time to prepare for an expedition through the Rif Mountains in Northern Morocco.

The drive to the north from Rabat showed little signs of any mountains, but instead once again surprised me, though I had now been in the country for over two months, in how green Morocco actually was.

Once again it was raining, so when we pulled up in our minibus on a parking space above the famous blue city of Chefchauen, we didn’t see much of it – and admittedly didn’t think much of it either, as we had to swap vehicles through the pouring rain. We would now continue up into the mountains by Land Rover. After a very exciting ride in the land rover, we arrived at a Gite in the middle of nowhere, where we would stay for the night; six people stayed in one small room, which meant that I had to sleep on a mattress on the floor.

The next day, we set off for our first leg of the route through the mountains. The Rif Moutnains aren’t especially high, with their highest peak not even reaching 2,500 meters, but certainly offer some pretty amazing views and a wide variety of plants ranging all the way from cannabis to daisies.

On the way uphill, we passed through a small town that didn’t have any electricity, running water or really much connection to the outside world at all. What it did have, though, were – cats. It seems to be an unwritten rule in Morocco that for a collection of houses to be considered a town, they must have cats.

We continued ascending up the side of the mountain, and the terrain became increasingly challenging.

Finally we had reached our lunch spot. Sitting at the edge of a cliff, without knowing how many hundreds of meters of a vertical drop were right in front of us, we enjoyed traditional Moroccan food that we had packed in the morning. Unfortunately, though, we didn’t pack any eating utensils, which made actually eating the rice as opposed to spilling it all over the place quite a challenge of its own. It was worth it for the view, though. Oh wait.

At only about 1,000 meters of altitude, we had reached condensation level and were now hiking through the thick clouds that remained from the rains on the previous day.

If you thought Morocco couldn’t possibly have thick forests of fir and pine, rest assured that you are not alone. Most people think of Morocco as a country in the Sahara. But think again.

After a long day, we finally descended into the valley, where our next Gite was waiting. On the way down, I got stuck in a muddy puddle with my foot, and when I tried getting lose, lost my shoe instead. During my efforts to retrieve that shoe, I then also got my other hiking boot stuck in the mud. What a great ending to the day.

The Gite we stayed at for the night had no electricity, no heating and barely any water, all of which was used for the room that housed a combo of a toilet and a shower. Unfortunately the water didn’t seem to want to get warm in the slightest, and I wasn’t quite willing to take a shower in 8°C cold water, so I passed for that day.

The next morning, we left the Gite just when the sun came up. We were all freezing, though we had slept with several blankets wrapped around each of us.

We crossed some more (at this time of year mostly empty) cannabis fields, and descended into a valley with a very clear stream at the bottom.

I am pleased to announce that in this valley we got to see one of the best-known legends of Morocco with our own hands: the climbing goats. These goats often climb into trees to reach their leaves, and the photos of them doing so have gone viral on several occasions. Unfortunately, they didn’t have to climb up any trees here in the Rif mountains as there was more than enough vegetation for them at ground level, but just when we left I did see one of them climb into a bush.

Leaving the climbing goats behind, we continued to make our way down the valley, always in the general direction of the Mediterranean sea, located to our north. As a matter of fact, we were closer to Spain than to Rabat.

One point on this day’s hike that really impressed me were a set of massive, colorful cliffs which made the left wall of the valley we were hiking in.

By now, the temperature had reached 25°C where we were hiking, a lot warmer than what we had in the clouds on the previous day. But only a couple hundred meters higher, snow was on the ground – you can see it if you look closely at the mountain in the back:

All along little creatures, like green lizards and grasshoppers, accompanied us.

Overall, the nature was quite incredible – including the highest density of daisies I had ever seen.

Once more, we descended down to the bottom of the valley. This time, though, we found a roman bridge and a small pool of beautiful, blue-green water. Of course some of us couldn’t resist to take a quick dip.

A bit later, we found another cliff to sit on and rest for a while, much like the day before – but this time with less clouds, and a better view. And boy, the view was pretty amazing.

Slowly but surely, we were approaching our next Gite. But first, we had to get down to the bottom of yet another valley. What is special about this valley, though, is that it has a natural bridge made of stone stretching over it, and you can actually walk across!

Finally, after a long day of hiking, we arrived in a small town where we would be staying for the night. We were quite surprised to find peacocks just walking around on the streets. But we were a lot happier to find a local guy who, for a Dirham each, pressed us amazingly fresh orange juice.

After finally having a good night’s rest, we had breakfast at a local place in the morning, accompanied by some peacocks.

Then we loaded up our Land Rovers, and set off for the next stop on our trip through Morocco’s far north: Chefchaouen, the “blue city”. But that deserves a whole post of its own.